


the dead are divine

by screechfox



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Collars, Do Not Archive (The Magnus Archives), Dubiously Consensual Mind Control, Gen, No Plot/Plotless, Non-Sexual Bondage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-26
Updated: 2019-11-26
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:27:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21573739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/screechfox/pseuds/screechfox
Summary: There is a collar of spiderwebs around Oliver Banks’ throat.
Relationships: Annabelle Cane & Oliver Banks
Comments: 10
Kudos: 58





	the dead are divine

There is a collar of spiderwebs around Oliver Banks’ throat. Annabelle isn’t entirely sure he’s noticed yet, though she’s been building it slowly over the two years of their friendship.

“Thank you for helping me with the Archivist, Oliver,” she says, just to be polite.

“I think I preferred it when you called me Antonio,” he says, but he’s smiling wryly. “Then I could pretend that you didn’t know everything about me.”

“Oh, I don’t know  _ everything. _ I’m not the Watcher, after all.”

As usual in their routine, she steps closer, blinking each set of dark eyes in turn. As usual, Oliver doesn’t step away, not even when she raises a finger to his throat and tugs at the webs she finds there. He just hums softly, eyes fluttering half-lidded as weeks of tension drain from him. She’s only doing him a favour, letting him relax into her guidance like this.

There’s a thud as she pushes him to the floor. If he were alive, she might spare some pity for his poor knees, but she’s yet to learn whether he can still feel pain like this. 

“Aren’t you a good boy,” she says, watching the praise shudder through him. 

A fresh strand of silver curls against the deep brown of his neck as she runs her fingers downwards and begins to unbutton his shirt. There are faint lines of webbing all across his body, of course, and she smiles as she unveils each and every one of them. Her manipulations stretch far and wide, but Oliver truly is the most dedicated of the tools she uses.

Annabelle reaches for his hands, holding his dead flesh in hers as she considers her next course of action. Oliver likes having choice taken from him — or at the very least, he’s resigned to it. Fear is no longer in his repertoire, so she may as well make the experience enjoyable.

One by one, she interlocks his fingers, pressing the heels of his palms together firmly. When she’s done, he looks like a man in the depths of prayer, his hands lined with silver. 

“Which god do you pray to, I wonder,” she murmurs. “The End, or the Web?”

There’s no answer, but she doesn’t need one.

Annabelle moves her hands to his elbows. To her sorrows, she has to embark on a more traditional manner of bondage, tying his elbows so tightly together that it would bruise someone living. There are certain advantages to being a walking corpse, though Annabelle is willing to admit that she got a better deal. A more practical one, at least.

She pulls the hood of her jacket down and brushes her hair backwards with an uncaring hand. Oliver’s half-lucid eyes focus on the web of scars at her temple, the remnants of death calling his gaze like a siren-song. She’s never asked if he can see her demise, and she never will — she knows better than to court misfortune like that.

It’s easy to pull his battered shoes off. He shudders on reflex as she runs a nail down the arch of his skin, pulling against the restraints on his arms. She binds his ankles in the same way she bound his elbows — bones pressed together far too close. She smiles at his soft sound of protest, running her thumbs over the calluses of his heels.

“Relax, Oliver. I’ve got you, haven’t I?”

Oliver shifts, restless and half-lucid. She loops a finger underneath that shining collar of his, and with a gentle pull, his movements settle. He exhales in a quiet sigh of dead air.

She only spreads a thin layer of webbing across the soles of his feet, but it’s enough that it will hamper any attempts he might make at walking. She imagines going further, Oliver’s feet forced en pointe by strands of silver, hands helplessly skittering away from any desperate attempts to tear it off. She wouldn’t do that to him, of course — and if she did, she’d make sure he’d enjoy it.

The creeping many-legged dark below her skin always chides her for such sentimental thoughts, but she likes Oliver, as much as she has the capacity to like things anymore. The bindings aren’t even necessary to keep him in place, but she knows Oliver enjoys having something to strain at. Servants of the End always find such comfort in futility, it’s charming.

“You’ve got me,” Oliver murmurs, the reply so delayed that it takes a moment for her to remember the context. She smiles, circling around so she stands in front of him. He meets her eyes without fear or worry. She can almost convince herself it’s honest camaraderie.

(Sometimes she wonders — in another life, would they have been friends?)

Taking a step back, she looks over her work. Oliver is leaning his chin on his clasped hands, looking up at her through the dark curve of his lashes. Between the worshipful bend of his limbs and the way he only wears a ragged pair of trousers and the silver of her touch, he looks like a piece of art. Perhaps an old statue of a saint, imperfect and ethereal all at once.

Annabelle’s lips quirk. They’re neither of them saints, and it’s no use pretending otherwise.


End file.
